Keira Knightley

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” And thus begins one of the most famous, most read, most fantabulous works of fiction ever to be written: Jane Austin’s classic satire of English life, love, and language, Pride and Prejudice. It’s a tale that has resonated with generations of readers, whether in its original printed form (see here for my favorite hardcover version of the book) or on the big and small screens. It’s been serialized for television by the BBC (why, hello Colin Firth in a wet shirt as Mr. Darcy), updated with a slightly grungy aesthetic and a moon-faced, perpetually parted-lipped Keira Knightley in 2005; and even contemporized for audiences (hello again, Colin Firth as Mark Darcy) in Bridget Jones’s Diary. And as Pride and Prejudice celebrates the 200th anniversary of its first printing, I’ve decided to cast aside the dystopian young-adult fiction I’m currently consuming with the discernment of a 10-year-old boy (don’t you dare judge) and return to the wit and romance of literature’s lovely roots: the so-cozy-it’s-suffocating coterie of the Bennett sisters, their longing-filled days spent roaming the heaths of Hertfordshire, and the complicated loves that finally break through—and ultimately set them free. I suggest you get on the horse-drawn carriage and do the same.